If we run ads we’re commercial. If we are commercial we run into more problems claiming fair use. We’d have to scrub our archives and really clamp down hard on our posters. I’d rather do with less income and retain more freedom.
That message is coming through loud and clear, at least to some of us.
What about specific goals for donations though? What about a specific goal to replace the 8th server, for instance? What about a price and a timeline to get that up and running? That would give us a concrete goal to donate for, and something that we could see as an accomplishment once it is up and running.
I, for one, have no illusion about forcing anything down anyone's throat here, especially yours Jim. We are powerless as we should be.
But I think there are a lot of people who can kick in more money and more in-kind services without destroying your vision of FR. Is it possible for us to do so?
Understood, Jim. I saw your thoughts on this in post #588, and have indicated to a couple of folks that the paid advertising route is apparently now a moot point of discussion.
I may have failed to note your concerns about 'fair use', in your earlier reply. I'll admit that having to scrub the archives, and clamping down on posters is a large drawback.
That said, what are we to make of other websites and blogs that post links to articles on the net, yet who have banner advertising throughout their site pages? Are they having to deal with 'fair use' issues, or fight off battalions of lawyers? Straight question. I really don't know the answer.
If there's just no way out of the advertising pickle, then perhaps the idea of giving screen names unique colors to denote their membership status would help. That's one idea I've seen today that also has merit.
Crazy, isn't it, when you think what Wikileaks get away with!
Out of interest, some forums avoid the fair use issue by changing the thread creation screen. Have you considered doing that?
A maximum limit on the Title of thread (ideally NOT HTML enabled), and body of thread (again ideally NOT HTML enabled), with the Source and Source URL fields left as the are, is more than sufficient for anyone to open a discussion topic, provide a link to the source article, offer an opening question or viewpoint and so on.
I don't know if this is possible in your configuration but one of my customers had a forum where new threads could have full HTML in the opening posts - and a spammer created an iframe and hosted some really pornographic content in it so visitors to the site opened an innocent conversation only to see at the top of the page, a pretty offensive pornographic video. What's worse, the video was actually uploaded to his site so his bandwidth usage went through the roof.
I'm only thinking, there's no real need for people to quote verbatim from news sites, or reproduce the HTML, or even excerpt, from a copyrighted source so if you wanted to stamp that out you could possibly just turn the HTML and excerpt options off, on new threads.
Amen!
That has my vote. However, if another FReeper/entity wanted to start a FOUNDATION site with products for sale (hats, shirts, books, whatever) that could in turn use its revenue to support other causes and sites, would that be do-able? Focus on the Family started a second group so that it could participate in politics (disastrously in some instances, so far, but give them time...) and avoid the tax implications of mixing politics with their essentially religious mission. Here we have another entity wishing to support non-commercial, free-speech, grassroots comment on politics without giving an entrée to legal sharks wanting to profit from fascist censors.